Last week we released our Banks 2° Scorecard 2018, an updated account of how the actions of Australia’s big four banks are tracking (or not) to their stated support of the Paris Agreement goal to limit global warming to well below 2°C, compared with pre-industrial levels.

Market Forces learned that in the week before the release, CommBank and NAB were involved in a US$6.1 billion loan to a massive new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Texas. The Corpus Christi LNG project is being developed by Cheniere Energy which boasts it “is the leading producer of liquefied natural gas in the United States”.

The loan will reportedly be used to fund a portion of the costs of developing, constructing, and placing into service three liquefaction facilities and related pipelines.

The 2°C warming limit gives us a very strict carbon budget to work within: around 80% all the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must stay underground to give us a fighting chance of meeting the Paris Agreement. So if we can’t even burn all the carbon currently claimed by fossil fuel companies, new projects like this will most certainly bust our climate goals.

The first three stages (‘trains’) of the project would be able to liquefy 13.5 million tons per annum (mtpa) of LNG. Based on conservative estimations, over its lifetime this would enable the release of 811 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2-e, equivalent to 1.5 times Australia’s emissions in 2017.

Take action! Tell CommBank and NAB 2 degrees means no new fossil fuels!